Rupert Murdoch and the Art of War

As the distributors of the classic Robert Greenwald documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism, we’re always happy to see the liberal media giving Mr. Murdoch yet another battering, but I have to say that I’m starting to wonder if they won’t be lining up for jobs with him soon, as the last newspaper tycoon standing. The latest assault, in New York Magazine:

This month, with the announcement that The Wall Street Journal would be expanding the scope of its coverage out of New York, Rupert Murdoch opens his most direct assault yet against his longstanding foe, the New York Times. But the Times launched a preemptive strike when its media critic, David Carr, casted [sic] aspersions on the Journal’s journalistic integrity a year into its ownership by Murdoch’s News Corporation. Carr reported on how its news pages have tilted rightward, much as one might expect from the owner of Fox News and the New York Post. In return, Journal editor Robert Thompson deemed the piece an “attack,” lashing out at Times editor Bill Keller and declaring that “principle is but a bystander” at the Gray Lady. (As of last week, the flame war was still being fanned.)

Meanwhile, Murdoch is fighting with an even bigger, non-ideological enemy, Google, over unpaid distribution of News Corp.’s news content. But if nothing else, Murdoch loves a good fight. Lives for it, really — it might even help keep him alive, at 78. Few people have sustained wars as long, or as consistently, as Murdoch, who from the age of 22 has thrived on publicly sticking it to his enemies. And very few have ever managed to get one over on the mogul. Herewith, a history of wars waged and battles won (and his one big loss)…

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